Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

NLV looks to charge for false alarms

If your burglar alarm goes off by mistake in North Las Vegas, it might end up costing you some money -- not from what you lose to thieves, but from what you'll owe City Hall.

Looking to protect both its budget and the time of its public safety employees, North Las Vegas is considering cracking down on false burglar and fire alarms, as well as charging for paramedic service.

The North Las Vegas Police Department reported 1,212 false burglar, panic and robbery alarms last year. The Fire Department received 678 false alarm calls in 2004. (False fire alarm statistics for 2005 were not available.)

For firefighters and police, the false alarms are a time-consuming annoyance that potentially could divert manpower and equipment from true emergencies.

"We have had some (locations) that have five or six false alarms," North Las Vegas Fire Capt. Cedric Williams said. "I know firefighters get frustrated going to the same places so many times."

Currently, North Las Vegas does not charge property owners even for repeated false burglar or fire alarms. "We just try to get them to fix the problem," Williams said.

That, however, may be about to change.

North Las Vegas City Manager Gregory Rose said his staff, borrowing practices common in other cities, is studying whether to impose user fees for paramedic service and to bill property owners' whose false alarms draw a police or fire response -- ideas recommended in a management audit.

If adopted -- and Rose as yet has no target date for taking a proposal to the City Council -- the change could help North Las Vegas ease budget pressures for public safety services.

Last week, North Las Vegas Fire Chief Al Gillespie said he wanted to raise his budget by more than 25 percent to hire more firefighters and paramedics. That came after his department unveiled a report showing that it cannot respond to calls quickly enough because of a shortage of firefighters.

As for paramedic services, the city is eyeing what medical care should be provided without charge and where fees should kick in -- for example, for medical supplies dispensed during an emergency run, Rose said. In many cases, fees would be paid by the patient's insurance company, city officials said.

"We recognize some of those costs are recovered through taxes an individual pays, but it is things over and above tax revenue that we are looking at," Rose said. "You are trying to recover your costs so you can lower the burden on those individuals who don't use the service."

North Las Vegas firefighters and paramedics responded to about 19,000 emergency medical calls in 2005. The paramedics provide basic and advanced medical care to patients, who, if they need hospital treatment, are taken by private ambulance. Paramedics ride along in the private ambulances if patients are unstable or in critical condition.

The private ambulance services already bill patients for transport to hospitals, but North Las Vegas does not charge for any services it provides.

Henderson charges patients taken by city-operated ambulances, Henderson Fire Chief Jim Cavalieri said. Las Vegas has a similar practice. Clark County, which like North Las Vegas does not operate its own ambulances, does not charge for paramedic services.

Amid tightening budgets, local governments nationwide increasingly have begun charging for paramedic services. One example is the Glendale Fire Department in California, which operates its own ambulance service and charges patients $100 for each response, even if they are not transported, fire officials said.

To generate extra revenue and ease the burden for those billed for paramedic services, some California cities offer a monthly subscription for households costing about $5 a month that covers any paramedic service needed.

The other new fee being considered by North Las Vegas involves possible charges to residents or businesses that exceed a number of false alarm calls within a specific period.

Other local police and fire agencies either impose no fees for false alarms or do not appear to be aggressively enforcing them.

Henderson's Municipal Code calls for monthly billing of all false alarms and issuing a citation if alarms are not fixed after more than three false calls in one month or in excess of 12 within a year. Authorities, however, said they are not aware of anyone being charged for false alarms.

Metro Police does not charge for false alarms. The Clark County Fire Department allows up to two false alarms within 60 days without penalty, although a third false alarm within the next 30 days could bring a possible $500 citation, spokesman Bob Leinbach said.

He said he is not aware of any citations issued, suggesting officials have focused not on financial penalties, but rather simply on getting homeowners and businesses to fix faulty alarms.

"We don't like to take people to court," Leinbach said. "We just want people to take care of the problem."

Rose argues that fees would encourage people to repair their alarms, freeing up officers and firefighters to respond to actual emergencies.

Not everyone, however, thinks charging fees for false alarms is a good idea.

Jackie Eller, a representative of Las Vegas Security Solutions, said other cities charge hundreds of dollars for an excessive number of false alarms. She said she fears people will be penalized for Nevada's gusty winds, which can rattle windows and trigger alarms.

But North Las Vegas Police spokesman Tim Bedwell said the department would not charge someone for a false alarm unless an officer was dispatched to the home or business. Police are seldom dispatched to burglar alarms, but dispatchers announce the alarms over the radio and leave it to the discretion of any officers in the area whether to respond, he said.

Alarms in homes and businesses are tracked by companies that sell them to property owners, Bedwell said. In some cases, security companies send their own guards to check out alarms.

North Las Vegas police automatically respond, however, if alarm companies notify them of a robbery alarm at a business and or panic alarm, which are primarily in homes, Bedwell said.

Bedwell who previously worked in Gilbert, Ariz., where police responded to all alarm calls, said some homeowners racked up large bills for false alarms.

"Sometimes people would have five or six a month," Bedwell said.

"People wouldn't be happy with it, but they had a police officer coming to their home every time. That was a small price for them to pay. They just needed to take care of their buttons and not have the rest of the public pay for their response."

Brian Wargo can be reached at 259-4011 or at [email protected].

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